Flesh Wound
by NetRaptor
Summary: Tails is captured by Robotnik, and Sonic must run a rigged race to free him. But Sonic ... loses.
1. Default Chapter

Flesh Wound  
  
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I only see it when I'm up   
  
that this down is what I need sometimes  
  
It's only here that I realize   
  
I can't do it by myself ...  
  
I fall down  
  
I fall down  
  
And when I fall down  
  
I see the dust that I come from ...  
  
--Fleshwound, by Massivivid  
  
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All characters in this story are copyrighted by Archie or Sega. The few minor fanchars in this story are copyrighted by K.M. Hollar. This story is based on a SatAM episode, but this story itself is copyright 2003 by K. M. Hollar.  
  
________________________________________________________  
  
I've always wanted to write a pure-SatAM story, using just the Freedom Fighters. A long time ago I wrote a little fanfic based on the SatAM episode where Sonic races the robot cheetah. I recently found it and decided to rewrite it, and here it is.  
  
________________________________________________________  
  
"Remember, this is a recon mission," said Sally. "No heroics, Sonic. We get in, we get out, zero residual presence."  
  
"Aw, c'mon Sal, you take the fun out of everything," said Sonic.  
  
Sonic, Sally and Tails were crouched bend an empty fuel drum. Beyond it was a refinery, with steel towers and pipes stretching up into the smoggy sky, the towers belching forth stinking black smoke. The reddened sun burned down with summer intensity, turning the tortured city of Robotropolis into a furnace.  
  
Tails was panting, for he could not sweat under his thick orange fur. "When do we go, Aunt Sally?"  
  
The squirrel was holding Nicole in her hand, gazing at the green lines on the computer's tiny screen. She was scanning for enemies, of which there were many, dotted about at the entrances. "Two minutes," she said.  
  
Two minutes crept by. The three Freedom Fighters crouched in their hiding place, the sun beating down on them. Sonic fidgeted. He hated staying still, especially when it was this hot--running was not only much more fun, it created a cooling breeze. He glanced at Tails, who looked miserably hot, and nervous. The young fox had been on a few missions before, but he was still in training, and had not yet become used to Robotropolis' alien atmosphere. He noticed Sonic's eyes on him and gave him a thumbs up.  
  
"Time's up," whispered Sally. "They're changing shifts. Go!"  
  
The three scattered, Sonic dashed to the right, Sally to the left, and Tails flew straight up. In the confusion of robots leaving their posts and new robots marching in, they went unnoticed. In another two minutes, the shift was changed, new SWATbots stood at their posts, and the refinery went about its business. They were unaware that three spies hid in their midst, investigating the refinery with three tiny cameras clicking.  
  
Sally was the first to return to hiding behind the steel drum, panting and winding the film in her camera. Sweat beaded along her upper lip and trickled down her face, over her fine fur, but she paid it no notice. She peered over the top of the drum, eyes narrowed, looking for her teammates.  
  
Tails crept to the rendezvous from a different quarter on foot, his own camera also full. "Sally," he whispered, and she turned at once, looking relieved. "Tails! How did it go?"  
  
"Fine," said the fox, his tongue hanging out like a dog's. "Nobody saw me. I got up inside the first complex and got pictures of the equipment. There's enough hazardous stuff in there to blow up this whole block." He tucked the camera into a utility belt buckled around his waist. "Where's Sonic?"  
  
Sally took a small flask of water from her own belt and drank deeply. "He'll be here," she said when she finished. "Here, take a drink." Tails accepted the flask gratefully.  
  
Sally's communicator light flashed, and she clicked on the speaker. "Sal, I'm out," came Sonic's breathless voice. "I'm a block over, I can't get to you without attracting attention. Can you come to me? I got a full roll." He sounded smug. "Roger," said Sally, and turned off the communicator. She nodded to Tails, and the pair slipped out of hiding and inched around a corner of a warehouse, keeping out of the SWATbots' range of vision.  
  
* * *  
  
"Freedom Fighters detected near the oil refineries," announced Snively. "Should I send out a patrol?"  
  
Dr. Robotnik sat in his throne-like control chair, gazing at three of the control room's eighteen screens, which displayed views of Sonic, Sally and Tails. His brow furrowed, but he said nothing.  
  
"Sir?" prompted Snively. He wanted to catch the pesky Mobian terrorists as much as his uncle did, but only for the reason that he would be given the day off as a reward. He had not had a day off in two years.  
  
"Let them go," rumbled Robotnik, watching the three race out of the three screens and reappear on two others. "But track them and record the exact trajectory Sonic takes when they enter the Great Forest."  
  
"Yes sir." Snively entered these unusual commands into the spybot controls and transmitted them. He risked a glance over his shoulder at his massive uncle, and was relieved to see Robotnik was deep in thought, instead of angry. He was curious as to why they had let Sonic and the two others escape, but he knew better than to interrupt Robotnik's thoughts. The warlord would tell him when he was ready. In the meantime, Snively busied himself about the control room. There was a city to run and robot squadrons that needed directions.  
  
A creak from the chair told Snively that Robotnik had arisen, and he looked up to see him bent over a computer console, reading the information on the screen. Sonic's trajectory had been calculated and recorded. "Snively," said Robotnik quietly, "what is our current supply level of fossil fuel?"  
  
Snively checked. "Twenty thousand tons of coal, five hundred thousand gallons of crude oil--"  
  
"By harvesting the Great Forest, we could increase our coal level by a thousand percent, couldn't we?" said Robotnik.  
  
Snively gazed at his uncle, the same plan forming in his head. "Harvest...? If we harvested it ... we would uncover anyone living in it..."  
  
"Exactly." Robotnik looked at Snively, a smile curling his mustache. "Not only would it be exceedingly profitable, it might also uncover ... other benefits." He straightened up, ordered Snively to begin construction on several thousand trucks for hauling lumber, and walked down the hall to his prototype room. He would need to design a robot with blades and saws to efficiently cut down and process timber.  
  
But first he called up a schematic of a robot he had been toying with for some time. It was modeled after a cheetah, and computer simulations had tested its speed at somewhere around Mach 4. As of yet he had no use for it, but somewhere in the near future it might come in handy. Such as running down Freedom Fighters.  
  
He sent the schematics to his robotic assembly plant, and sat down to design some saw-type robots.  
  
* * *  
  
Knothole village was home to the Freedom Fighters, a surprising small group of refugees from Robotropolis. It was hidden eight miles within the borders of the Great Forest, next to the river, in a natural cavern underground. The entrance was an underground shaft that led to a rocky area above ground where a few huts stood among the trees, and a waterwheel dipped and churned in the river.  
  
Sonic was the first to arrive, as usual. He dove through a hollow stump that served as a door, slid down a shaft, and landed with a soft flump on a pile of musty hay. He laughed and stood up, and Tails and Sally slid down after him. He helped them up, paying particular attention to Sally. "Well? Well? How'd I do? Say it!"  
  
"It was a good idea to bring Tails along," said Sally, smiling and ruffling the fox's headfur. "The best idea you've had in a long time. Wait. It was the only idea you've had in a long time."  
  
Sonic pretended to punch her, and Sally dodged his fist and walked, laughing, up the underground corridor toward a room at the end. Tails tapped Sonic on the shoulder. "Did I do okay?"  
  
"You did fine, little bro," said Sonic, tweaking one of the fox's ears. "I'm fried, let's go swimming."  
  
They entered the main cavern room, where Sally was laying out the three cameras and jotting something down in a notebook. She looked up as Sonic and Tails climbed the ladder to the outdoors. "Where are you two off to?"  
  
"The river!" exclaimed Tails.  
  
"Don't go out in the current," warned Sally. "Sonic, can you tell Rotor to come down here? I'd like to get these developed."  
  
Sonic gave her a thumbs up, and he and Tails climbed out of the cave's coolness into the stifling humidity of the Great Forest. They met Rotor as they walked down a path toward the waterside. The walrus was wearing a utility belt full of tools and a grubby baseball cap turned backwards. "Oh, hi Sonic," he said in surprise. "You guys are back already?"  
  
"Yeah," said Sonic, jerking a thumb toward the cavern entrance. "Sally wants you, needs you to develop some film."  
  
Rotor nodded, and Sonic and Tails continued down to the river. Knothole was quiet at this time of day, and the only sound beside the rush of the river was the buzz of cicadas somewhere upriver, where the foliage was less dense.   
  
Sonic and Tails took off their shoes and socks, and waded into the river where there was a wide place with a sandbar ten feet out. Between the sandbar and the shore was an area of shallow, calm water where the villagers swam. Beyond the sandbar, the river flowed swift and deadly. Everyone knew about the current, and Sally had forbidden anyone to try to swim in it (mostly Sonic). But Sonic was in no mood to dare the river today. He relaxed in the cool water as Tails breaststroked the length of the pool, his fluffy tails floating behind him.  
  
"I hate Robotropolis," remarked Tails.  
  
"So do I," said Sonic. "But I hate Robotnik more."  
  
"Yeah." It was a familiar conversation opener. After a moment, Tails asked, "Are we going to blow up that factory?"  
  
"Probably." Sonic turned over to float on his back. "Depends on how bad it hurts Robotnik. Sally might decided to blow up something else."  
  
"Oh." Tails ducked under and resurfaced a moment later. "Does Robotnik scare you?"  
  
"Me? Naw," said Sonic. Then he looked thoughtful. "Maybe a little."  
  
"He scares me," said Tails, shaking his wet head. "Because I know that if I ever see him, the next thing I'll see is the robotizer."  
  
"No, you'd see a cool blue hedgehog coming to save you," said Sonic. "I'd never let that jerk hurt you."  
  
"I know," said Tails, smiling. "I'm just glad you talked Sally into letting me go. She still doesn't think I'm old enough, does she?"  
  
"Nope," said Sonic. "You owe me." He splashed at Tails, who splashed back. For a moment they had a splash-fight, then Tails dunked Sonic, who dunked him back. Tails escaped Sonic's hold and swam to the sandbar, where he crawled out and lay in the sun, his fur plastered to his body. Sonic crawled up beside him and stretched out. "Ahh," he sighed, looking up at the blazing blue sky. "This is the life." 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *  
  
Sally and Rotor developed the factory photos, and Sally laid them out on a table and poured over them, Nicole lying next to them. Tails' set of photos were the most interesting, for the fox had not only been high above the floor and so photographed the widest shots, he seemed to have a natural talent for photography. His images were the ones Sally studied the longest.  
  
Bunnie Rabbot entered and carefully climbed down the ladder, placing her metal feet with extra care on the rungs. "Hi, Sally-girl," the rabbit drawled in a Southern accent. "What'd y'all find?"  
  
"Very interesting things," said Sally without looking up. She slid two photos over to her friend, who picked them up in her robot hand and examined them.  
  
"I see what you mean," murmured Bunnie, looking at the huge steel vats that were surrounded by pipes. "That's where the oil is purified, right?"  
  
"Right," said Sally. "I was more interested in the tank behind the vats. See it?" She pointed to a tall rounded tank against the wall, nearly hidden from view behind a vat. "That's where waste gas is temporarily stored as it comes off the vats. A charge placed on one of those would destroy the whole refinery."  
  
"That's dangerous, though," said Bunnie, looking at Sally and biting her lower lip. "Y'all think you could get in and get out without getting yourselves blown up?"  
  
Sally brushed her auburn hair out of her eyes and gazed fiercely at the photos. "I think we can do it. I could work from our outpost. Sonic and Tails could get in, and Tails could fly Sonic out..." She looked at Bunnie, a fiery glint in her blue eyes that said another mission was as good as accomplished. "All we need is to find the best time to go in."  
  
* * *  
  
Three days passed before the Freedom Fighters made their move. In those three days, Robotnik's factories had produced two-thirds of the required equipment to make an assault on the Great Forest. The factories and refineries may have spewed pollution enough to choke a planet, but they were efficient. Robots and machinery designed by Robotnik himself worked on regular schedules, delivering shipments of materials and transferring SWAT-bot troops to posts around the city. Once a week they were brought in for mandatory maintenance, which was carried out by the lowest creatures in the Robotropolis caste: robotized citizens.  
  
Thousands of miserable worker bots slaved around the clock, never resting, their minds chained to their metal bodies, enslaved to Robotnik. There were as many body designs as there were Mobian species, and some looked as if they could be quite ferocious, for the robotizer enhanced teeth or claws with metal replacements. But these sad creatures never thought to use their weapons against their master, for they had no free will left.  
  
No Freedom Fighter, on pain of death, was allowed to harm a worker bot.  
  
Sally was not thinking of this as she hid among heaps of industrial waste on the outskirts of Robotropolis. She was focused on the mission ahead. She had a communicator in one hand and Nicole in the other, who was sending a pirate signal to a nearby relay tower. Sally had access to map and system information for fifteen or twenty minutes, which was when she would have to disconnect to avoid being traced. It was long enough.  
  
Sonic and Tails had eight minutes to reach the target refinery, and would maintain radio silence until then. Sally sat on cracked pavement under the carcass of a broken crane, kept one eye on her watch and the other on Nicole, and waited.   
  
She exhaled as Sonic's voice said, "We're there, Sal. Where to?"  
  
"Wait for the shift change," said Sally, glancing at the schedule, which she had scribbled on a sheet of notebook paper. "Any minute now. Fly in, set the charge, get out."  
  
"Gotcha, Sal. Radio you again when we're out." There was a click as Sonic turned off his communicator.  
  
Sally hugged her knees, watching Nicole's green and black screen. She was confident in Sonic and Tails' abilities, but she was still nervous. What if ... what if ... no, she wouldn't think about that. Calculate the distance they will have to be from the refinery before you detonate the charge. She was good at trigonometry--she had gotten good grades in it from her tutor, back in the palace, before Robotnik had betrayed the king and consumed Mobitropolis in metal and smog...  
  
She calculated the problem--two miles was the answer--and resumed waiting. Where were they now? Perched in the rafters of a refinery, waiting for a chance to slip down and stick a plastic explosive to a gas canister? She got up and began to pace, holding Nicole. So far so good--no disturbance, nothing unusual. They would need to restock on explosives after this, Sonic would enjoy robbing a high-security warehouse, and it wouldn't matter how many SWAT-bots he destroyed...  
  
A message flashed across her screen, and Sally felt a hot stab of fear through her heart. Intruders detected. Priority one: Hedgehog identified. Request reinforcements.  
  
"Oh Sonic, run," she whispered, biting a fingernail. She reached for her communicator, which clicked on as she touched it. "Sal, I'm out," came Sonic's breathless voice.  
  
"What happened?" she said, hardly able to speak over the thundering of her heart.  
  
"Blasted cambot. By the time I noticed it it had sounded the alarm. We got the charge planted, though. Tails and I split up, he's on the roofs."  
  
Sally watched as more red messages flickered across Nicole's screen. "Sonic, they've called out Squads 23 and 178. They're headed right for you."  
  
"Don't worry about me, I'm cool," said Sonic. There came a second of static, broken by an indistinct noise Sally guessed was the hedgehog leveling a regiment of SWATbots. "That got 'em!" Sonic laughed. "I'm turning this off so they don't trace your transmission. See you in a few."  
  
Sally moved out of hiding, scanning the cityline for the uproar she knew Sonic was causing. She had a sick feeling in her stomach about Tails. He was alone, roof hopping, while Sonic drew off the pursuit. Sally didn't know what she would do if something happened to Tails. She read him bedtime stories and fussed about his meals, and made him wear a scarf when it was cold. He was still so young, and if he didn't make it ... She clasped her hands. "Tails, come on, please."  
  
Approaching footsteps made her turn and Sonic dashed into view, panting and holding a detonator in one hand. "Back, Sal! Say the word and I'll blow the joint."  
  
"Tails isn't back yet," said Sally. "Wait a minute."  
  
"He's not?" Sonic looked blank. "But he should be here by now, he was coming straight here." Then horror crept into his face. "Sal, you don't think..."  
  
He was gone before he finished his sentence, running as only he could. Sally watched him go, breathing heavily as though she, too, had been running. She was panicking, she knew. Calm down, he probably got lost, Sonic will find him, maybe he had to hide--  
  
Her communicator lit up, and Sonic said, "I don't see him anywhere. The robots are all still looking for me. Have any prisoners been taken?"  
  
Sally checked Nicole. No, no prisoners had been taken in the past hour. "No, Sonic," she replied, voice shaking. "He's got to be hiding somewhere."   
  
He's got to.   
  
But Sally couldn't banish the vivid image of Tails standing inside the robotizer. She clutched her heart, trying to slow it down. This kind of terror was a thousand times worse than what she had felt while fleeing Robotnik as a child. This was a helpless, overwhelming terror, made all the greater because she could do nothing. Absolutely nothing.  
  
Then Sonic screamed in fury, and Sally knew what had happened.   
  
She leaned against the broken crane and rested her head against its cold metal. "They've got him!" Sonic was screeching over and over. Then his communicator's microphone was overwhelmed by noise of carnage as he shredded robots, fighting to reach his sidekick. There was a particularly loud buzz, and his communicator went dead.  
  
Sally could only watch in silence as a message blinked on Nicole's screen: Hostage secured. Identified as Freedom Fighter. In transit to secure facility.   
  
After a while a new message informed her that Tails had reached a secure facility and had been contained, awaiting sentence.  
  
It was half an hour before Sonic returned, walking, his spines stained with oil and grime. He had the look of a warrior worn out with combat, but his eyes burned as he looked at Sally. "They put him in the west cellblocks. He was too close to the fortress, Sal. I couldn't get to him."   
  
She looked at him, unable to speak, but her eyes asked the question.  
  
Sonic rubbed his eyes. "I don't know how they caught him. It looked like he was hiding and one of them saw him. He was ... he was sedated..."  
  
Before Sally could say a word, Sonic held up the detonator controls and pressed the button. One of the refinery towers exploded in a sheet of white flame, engulfing the surrounding structures in orange fire and black smoke.  
  
Sonic and Sally were already gone, Sonic carrying Sally and running like the wind for Knothole.  
  
* * *  
  
"Well well, this is a sick twist of fate," said Robotnik as he strolled through the West Cellblock. It was a narrow prison built of cement and iron bars, each cell exactly six feet square. It stank of excrement and unwashed bodies, and roaches and other vermin crawled away from the light Robotnik carried in one hand. But he did not care. No prisoner was held longer than a few days before being robotized, and he saw no reason to include sanitation in a prison.  
  
The cells in row 3B were empty, but for one at the far end. Robotnik stopped and shone his light through the bars. Lying on the floor within was a young fox with two tails, his eyes half-open and unseeing. He did not flinch as Robotnik beamed the light in his eyes. "Tranquilized, I see," he thought. "How convenient. They destroy two oil refineries, and in exchange I take a hostage."  
  
He gazed at Tails a moment longer, then looked up and down the cellblock. If the Freedom Fighters could sneak into a high-security refinery, they could break into a prison. He pressed a few buttons on his robotized wrist, and a moment later two SWAT-bots clanked down the hall toward him.  
  
"Bring the prisoner," he said, motioning to the silent fox.  
  
The SWAT-bots obeyed with mechanical precision, opening the bars and picking up the pitifully small lump of fur, who hung limp in their cold hands.  
  
Robotnik led them up to the fortress, and into the control room, where he and Snively spent most of their time. Robotnik took a key from a ring at his belt and opened a compartment in the floor, a few feet from his throne-like chair. Within was a dark storage compartment about five feet square. The SWAT-bots dropped Tails inside this, and Robotnik closed and locked the cover. It blended with the floor so perfectly that one would have never known it existed.  
  
Snively, who was working as usual, said nothing until the SWAT-bots had gone and his prodigious uncle had settled himself in his chair. Then Snively turned and looked toward the closed compartment. "What will we do with him, sir?"  
  
"Not the robotizer," muttered Robotnik, resting his chin on one fist. "A Knothole hostage is too precious to waste on such trivialities. I will think about it."  
  
There was a moment of silence, and Snively resumed working. He jumped as Robotnik spoke his name. Snively turned, not knowing what to expect.  
  
His uncle was smiling. "Take the day off." 


	3. Chapter 3

* * *  
  
Sonic stormed back and forth across the cavern where the other Freedom Fighters were grouped around Sally's computer. Except for Sonic's relentless pacing, no one moved. Horror gripped them all.  
  
"He's in West cellblock 3B," said Sally, breaking the silence.  
  
"Great! Good!" said Sonic, turning to look at Nicole, which displayed plans of the prison on its screen. "If we act fast they won't have time to hurt him."  
  
No one said the word "robotize". It was as if speaking it would make it happen, and they would never see Tails again, except as a mindless worker bot with two tails.  
  
Sally looked at the faces of her friends--Bunnie Rabbot, Antoine, Rotor, and Sonic. They were the Freedom Fighters, and they could not afford to lose one member. "Fifteen minutes," she said. "Sonic and I will go alone. No, Bunnie," she said as the half-robotized rabbit opened her mouth, "This is a speed mission. I need you to stay here and ... and look after things."  
  
Antoine, a coyote in a royal blue Guard uniform, laid a hand on Sally's shoulder. "I don't think you should go," he said in a heavy French accent. "You should let Sonic go alone."  
  
"No, Ant," said Sally, standing up. "I let Tails go in there, and I'm going after him."  
  
Antoine shot a jealous look at Sonic, but Sonic ignored him. The hedgehog was too upset to think about anyone but Tails. "Good, great, let's go," said Sonic, jogging in place. "The sooner the better. C'mon, Sal!"  
  
Sally clipped Nicole to her boot, and ran up the steps to the surface entrance. She and Sonic climbed out through the stump into the warm, open air, and Sonic picked her up and ran, back to Robotropolis, back into the summer heat.  
  
* * *  
  
Snively was soaking in a jacuzzi in the old staffroom that he had often looked at but never had a chance to use. It was bliss in this hot weather. He closed his eyes and imagined himself on a tropical beach somewhere, instead of chained to Robotropolis as effectively as a worker bot. If he left, Robotnik would hunt him down and kill him because he knew too much. If he stayed, he would be overworked until he died. But in the meantime, one free day was heaven.  
  
His work phone rang on the table beside the Jacuzzi. It figured. A whole day off was unheard of in this job. At least he had had a few hours to himself. He picked up his phone. "Yes sir?"  
  
"Snively, I have an idea," said Robotnik. He sounded amiable enough. "What do you think of exchanging hostages--Sonic in exchange for the fox?"  
  
Snively thought about it. It sounded good in theory, but he knew how resourceful Sonic was. He would escape in the first five minutes, and both hostages would be gone. But telling his uncle that his idea would fail was a tricky business. Snively took the most diplomatic route he could. "Of course, sir, that's an excellent idea. It's much better than my own."  
  
"Oh? You had an idea?" said Robotnik.  
  
"It was nothing, really," said Snively. "It would be a distraction for the Freedom Fighters as you moved in the logging units..."  
  
"Yes? What?" said Robotnik, his curiosity aroused.  
  
Snively leaned back in the hot tub and allowed himself an inner smile. For once he had sounded out his uncle and had got him interested. "A race, sir. Your new speed-robot against Sonic, and the reward is the hostage. Of course, Sonic will not be allowed to survive such a race."  
  
Robotnik was silent a long moment, then breathed, "Yes." Snively could hear him smiling. "Yes, I like it. I shall want you at the control room early tomorrow morning to coordinate plans." There was a click as he hung up.  
  
Snively couldn't believe his luck. Not only had Robotnik liked his idea, but he also let Snively have the full day to himself! It probably wouldn't last, Snively reminded himself, but he would enjoy himself while he could. He sank down in the bubbling water and imagined himself on a tropical beach somewhere...  
  
* * *  
  
Sonic dropped off Sally two blocks from the West Cellblock and raced the rest of the way by himself. The plan was for him to destroy all opposition, and she would come along once the dust settled and hack the doorlocks. It was a haphazard plan, but Sally was too shaken to plan more thoroughly.  
  
Sonic was standing at a corner, peering at the robots on guard duty around the squat prison entrance and calculating the quickest way to flatten them, when Sally said through his communicator, "Sonic!"  
  
He lifted his com to his mouth and whispered, "Yeah Sal?"  
  
"Sonic, we've been detected. Get out of--"  
  
The signal cut out, and Robotnik's deep voice rasped through the speaker. "Perhaps you had better reconsider, Sonic. SWAT-bots aren't as cheap as you think they are."  
  
"Buttnik!" exclaimed Sonic in horror. He had thought that the communicator frequency was too low to be tapped. The hedgehog backed from the sight of the SWATbots and crouched in the shadow of an alley mouth. If Robotnik could hack their com channel, he could trace Sonic and Sally's locations.  
  
"What do you want?" came Sally's voice. She sounded calm and collected. He slipped out of hiding and sprinted back to where he had left her. It wouldn't do to lose both Sally and Tails in the same day.  
  
"It seems I have something you want," came Robotnik's purr. "Something quite dear to you."  
  
Sally said nothing, and Sonic bit back a savage retort. Expressing rage would show the enemy how much power he held over them.  
  
After a moment, Robotnik went on, "As a slave, the fox is well-nigh useless to me. He is too small and too young. But as a hostage, well, perhaps we can come to an agreement."  
  
Sonic rounded a corner and found Sally where he had left her, leaning against a brick wall with a haunted look in her eyes. She glanced at Sonic and motioned for him to keep quiet. He shut off his communicator and drew near to listen.  
  
Sally's voice was firm. "There will be no exchange of hostages."  
  
"I was not suggesting an exchange," said Robotnik, and evil amusement crept into his voice. "All I ask in return for the fox is a favor."  
  
Sally and Sonic exchanged glances, and Sally said, "What sort of favor?"  
  
"I have a robot prototype that needs extensive testing," said Robotnik, the amusement in his voice becoming more pronounced. "Its speed theoretically matches that of Sonic's. However, field-testing has proved inconclusive. I would prefer to test it against Sonic himself."  
  
"What, race?" said Sonic before Sally could stop him.  
  
"Race. Exactly," said Robotnik. "A ten-mile track during which the two of you match speeds. If you win, I release the fox to you. If I win, the fox is mine to do with as I please."  
  
"It's a trick," whispered Sally.  
  
Sonic looked at the ground, doing some quick thinking. He took the communicator from Sally's hand and said, "I agree on two conditions."  
  
"Oh?" said Robotnik.  
  
"Number one," said Sonic, "I select the course. Number two, Tails is present at the race."  
  
"Is that all?" asked Robotnik. "Those conditions are easily met. I want course plans by this time tomorrow. The race itself will be held the day after."  
  
Sonic handed the communicator to Sally as Robotnik relayed instructions about where to send the race plans, and the two began to sneak away from their position. They were too familiar with Robotnik's treacherous dealings, and managed to slip past an incoming squad of SWAT-bots without being seen. Then Sally shut off the communicator, Sonic picked her up, and they fled Robotropolis at several hundred miles an hour.  
  
***  
  
Tails knew his eyes had been open for some time, but he did not know when he became aware of it. He blinked. His mouth was dry, and his head felt furry inside. Where was he? What had happened? It was nearly pitch black, with a thin thread of light coming from a crack along the ceiling.  
  
He slowly sat up, wishing for a drink. Was it night already? He remembered running through Robotropolis, and feeling the splinter-sting of a tranquilizer dart in his back, but surely he hadn't been captured. Sonic wouldn't have let it happen. He reached down and rubbed the spot where the dart had struck him. He hadn't known the SWAT-bots used darts ... he would tell Sally.  
  
He felt around, wondering where he was. He was in a box-like room, and the only light came from a tiny crack along the ceiling. Moving about helped his head to clear, and he remembered his ultra-watch. It had been a digital watch, but he had commandeered some of Rotor's tools and built a compass, a calculator and a light into it. He turned on his light and shone it around his tiny prison. This place wasn't in Knothole.  
  
That meant ... he had been captured.  
  
Tails slumped against the wall and flicked his light off. He felt like crying. "I've been captured!" He had never seen the robotizer, but he had heard it described many times. A tall glass tube in the middle of a circular room filled with computers. Would they robotize him? Or just kill him? He didn't want to be killed or robotized--right now he just wanted to see Sonic.  
  
And he wanted a drink of water.  
  
***  
  
"You do know he'll try to kill you?"  
  
Sonic faced Sally across a map of the Great Forest. "Duh, Sal. My brain didn't fall out of my head on the way home."  
  
"It didn't?" said Sally, eyes flaming. "Then why DID you agree?"  
  
"Do you have a better idea about rescuing Tails?" said the blue hedgehog, resting a clenched fist on the table. "He's gone. He might still be safe, if Robotnik meant what he said. And this race might be a good chance for you guys to rescue him."  
  
"Sonic, if we lose you the Freedom Fighters are doomed." Sally was trembling and tried not to show it. "We need you."  
  
Sonic looked at her a long moment, then dropped his eyes to the map. "I can take the old highway for four miles, go along the ridge for a mile, and take this sideroad back to the highway for the last five." He looked up at her. "Nice and straight."  
  
They had already discussed the racecourse itself, and laying it out had been easy. There were many roads leading south, through the ruins of outlying towns that Robotnik had wiped out. Many of the roads had fallen into disrepair, but the highway was still maintained for the big trucks that hauled supplies and materials into Robotropolis twice a week.  
  
Sally did not object to the course, but to the idea of a race at all. She had lost Tails that day, and seeing Sonic rush headlong into a suicidal scheme was more than she could handle. She placed her palms flat on the table to steady herself. "It may be nice and straight on paper, Sonic. But Robotnik plays crooked."  
  
Sonic gave her the ghost of his old grin. "You do think my brain fell out of my head. I know! That's why the whole thing is so open, so I can get away if he pulls anything."  
  
Sally said nothing, but she was thinking about robots, land mines, turrets, anything that their enemy might use.   
  
Sonic read her face. "Sal, I hate this as much as you do, but it's safer for me, and you, and Tails. Who knows, I might come out alive." He smiled.  
  
"Carry a gun."  
  
"Anything to oblige, Princess." Sonic turned away. "I think I'd better go practice. You never know when you might have to run a little." He climbed the ladder and left the cave with Sally staring at the map, biting her lower lip. 


	4. Chapter 4

***  
  
Snively had long ago become callused to the killing and robotization of Mobians. He did not heed their screams or cries for mercy. He had seen too many of them march to the Robotizer to feel compassion. But somewhere deep down, he felt a hidden guilt about it, and could not bear to remain in the same room as a Mobian, any Mobian.  
  
The knowledge that there was a young fox in the floor compartment of the control room ate at him as he worked. He was conscious of his uncle's watchful gaze, but he was also conscious of the Mobian's presence, too close for comfort, locked away though it may be. He began to sweat and make mistakes, pressing the wrong buttons and making typos in command strings. Why did Robotnik have to keep the fox in here? Did he think it could escape from a fortress cell? The fortress cells were the best ones in Robotropolis. Or maybe Robotnik liked having the fox near at hand.  
  
"Sir," said Snively, turning around, "we have a cage meant for extra-strong prisoners in the next room."  
  
"Yes?" said Robotnik, who was watching a monitor.  
  
"If you wanted to put the fox in it, you could keep a closer eye on it."  
  
"And have it rescued by its confederates," snapped Robotnik. "The reason I brought it here was to keep it out of sight."  
  
Snively shrugged and returned to his work. Why had he suggested that, anyway? It would be worse if he could see the Mobian. The way it was, he could pretend it wasn't there under the floor, waiting, listening, making Snively feel guilty ... If it were kept in the next room, however, he would feel better.  
  
To his chagrin, an hour later Robotnik wheeled in a cage like a reinforced pet carrier. "You had a good idea, Snively," he said, rolling the cage to the edge of the concealed floor panel. "I would like to question the little maggot. Call in the capture droids."  
  
Snively obeyed, inwardly squirming. Now he would have to look at the Mobian every time he turned around, and worse yet, listen to it talk. If he listened to one of them talk for too long, he began to wonder how intelligent they really were, and then he began to think about the things those other Mobians had screamed at him while he had Robotizer duty, and...  
  
Two capture droids entered the room. They were big cans with six arms, each armed with a hand, a hook, a stunner, and other capture-related instruments. Robotnik instructed them on what he wanted them to do, then unlocked the floor panel and lifted it open.  
  
The fox leaped out at once, but it was caught by the capture droids and thrown into the cage, which Robotnik slammed shut and locked. Snively watched it rattle the cage bars with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He turned away as it spoke.  
  
"Is Sonic here?"  
  
"No," said Robotnik. "Your friends have abandoned you."  
  
Snively could hear the note of stunned bewilderment in the fox's voice. "They did? But ... but Sonic wouldn't do that." Then the fox became angry. "Hey, you're trying to trick me, aren't you? Sonic said you try to do that."  
  
"I am merely stating facts," said Robotnik. "You are here. They are not."  
  
There was a moment of silence. Snively glanced over his shoulder and saw the fox looking at him through the holes in the cage sides. He looked away, but the fox said, "Hey, I know you. You're Snively." When Snively did not reply, the fox went on, "You run all these computers by YOURSELF?"  
  
"Of course not," said Robotnik. "I'm here."  
  
"He's running them right now," said the fox. "And you're just sitting in your chair."  
  
Snively swallowed a laugh and studied a readout without seeing it.  
  
Robotnik's voice was slightly louder as he asked, "What were you doing in the city when you were captured?"  
  
"Oh, we blew up that factory," said the fox. "But you know that. I can see the smoke out the window over there."  
  
"Why did you do it?"  
  
"Because Sally says that destroying a factory disrupts manufacturing." The fox paused, then added, "Forget I told you that, I'm not supposed to tell you that." Snively glanced over his shoulder to see the fox sit down in the cage and wrap its tails around its body. It had two of them, he noticed. A mutant.  
  
"I'm thirsty," said the fox. "Can I have a drink?"  
  
"No," said Robotnik. "Let's talk about Sonic."  
  
"Let's not," said Tails. "I don't want to talk to you anymore. My mouth's dry."  
  
Snively looked over his shoulder, and met Robotnik's eye. Robotnik was smiling. Perhaps the fox was good for something other than a hostage.  
  
***  
  
Sonic ran the racecourse over and over the rest of that day and the following day. Down the highway, across the ridge, back along the dirt road, back onto the highway in a big loop. The highway was open and straight--Sonic woulc see any waiting robots. The dirt road cut through a few hills, but Sonic timed himself and figured he could outrun anything fired at him.  
  
It was the ridge that gave him trouble. Why in the heck had he picked the ridge road? It was nice and wide, but there were three places where it skirted the edge of a canyon, with only a guardrail between the road and empty space. Sonic tested the guardrails in each place and decided they would withstand something striking them. If Robotnik tried anything, he would find the rails sturdier than they looked. The road also skirted several turns, and Sonic practiced on them, each time imagining himself racing a super-fast robot of some kind.  
  
Sonic did not normally run that much, but all he could think of was Tails. Poor Tails in a cell somewhere, probably being interrogated, maybe tortured. Sonic had told Tails not to answer questions if he was ever caught, but what if they tortured him? Sonic ground his teeth and vowed to punish Robotnik personally if any harm came to the young fox. And so he ran the course over and over.  
  
Sally sent Robotnik the course plan two minutes before midnight, for she wanted him to have as little advantage as possible. But Robotnik was waiting when the plan arrived on his servers, and fired up his hovercraft immediately to examine the track. He took with him several pounds of magnetic tacks, and the racing robot, which had been completed that morning.  
  
Together creator and creation reviewed the course under the cover of darkness, and they, too, noticed the ridge road and the canyon flanking it. Robotnik drove his ship to and fro along that stretch, examining and scheming. The cheetah-robot paced below him, oiled and sleek, its tiny, aerodynamic head swinging from side to side.  
  
When Robotnik returned to Robotropolis for a few hours' sleep, he left behind him a ridge track strewn with magnetic tacks. 


	5. Chapter 5

* * *  
  
The morning of the race dawned clear and hot. Sonic was awake before dawn, jittery and unable to eat. He ran to the course and back three times, checking to see if Robotnik had arrived.  
  
The time of the race was noon, and as the sun climbed, the temperature did as well. Sonic's fur became damp with sweat, but he could not bear to sit still. Sally tried to coax him into the shade, but to no avail. She watched him race up and down Knothole, her stomach in a knot. She knew how he felt, and wished with all her heart that this foolish race were over and done with.  
  
At eleven Sonic jumped in the river to cool himself off, and then sprinted off to the racecourse, dripping wet and insisting he would wait there. At eleven-thirty, Sally and Bunnie went after him, each of them carrying a concealed blaster pistol.  
  
Robotnik arrived at eleven-forty five in his hovercraft, the robot cheetah stalking along below him. Strapped to the back of the hovercraft was the cage containing Tails.  
  
Sonic sprinted to the hovercraft. "Let me see him closer, Buttnik."  
  
"Why should I do that?" said Robotnik, looking out of the hovercraft to make sure he was a safe distance from the ground. Sonic could jump like a cat when he wanted to.  
  
"To make sure he's all right," snarled Sonic. "You haven't tortured him or anything, have you?"  
  
Unseen by Sonic, Robotnik glanced over his shoulder at Tails, held up a small electric taser, and nodded toward Sonic. "I'm all right, Sonic," called Tails, his eyes on the taser.  
  
"Don't tell him anything! You got that? Nothing!"  
  
"Okay, Sonic," said Tails, leaning against the bars and trying to see over the edge of the hovercraft. Sonic moved backward, and they looked at each other. Tails glanced at the taser, and decided to warn Sonic anyway. "Sonic be careful they're gonna try to knock you off the cliff!"  
  
Robotnik's hand clenched on the taser. Tails hoped that Sonic won, because if he did not, Tails's punishment would be terrible.  
  
"Gotcha, Tails," said Sonic, glaring at Robotnik and the cheetah-robot. "Buttnik, hand over Tails now, because you know your sorry 'bot isn't going to beat me."  
  
"On the contrary," purred Robotnik. "What say we start this race a few minutes early?"  
  
"Great!" said Sonic. "Starting line's over there."  
  
"Two laps," said Robotnik.  
  
"You're on," said Sonic.  
  
Sonic and the cheetah marched onto the empty highway and up to a chalk line drawn across it. Sonic examined the cheetah as they walked. It was a jet engine with legs. Its body was a bullet-shape, and the head was tiny and pointed. He noticed the legs had no hinges--rather they worked in sockets, so they could bend in any direction like a spider's legs. He wondered how that was supposed to help the design, because flimsy legs would break off at high speeds.  
  
As they toed the line, Sonic looked around for Sally. He spotted her on the edge of the trees, near cover if Robotnik decided to attack her. Bunnie was a short distance away, a pistol held visibly in her good hand. Good, he had backup if he needed it. Not that he would need it. Sonic could beat any robot ever built. He looked at the cage containing Tails, although the holes in the sides blocked the fox from view. "This is for you, little bro," he said.  
  
"Marks," said Robotnik in a bored voice. Sonic assumed a runner's crouch, wishing he had some starting blocks. The cheetah's engine whirred to life, but it did not move.  
  
"Set," said Robotnik. Sonic waited, muscles tense, sweat dripping off him afresh, for his fur had already dried in the heat.  
  
"Go!"  
  
Sonic sprang away and ran like the wind, and was dismayed to see the cheetah was at his side, jet engine screeching and legs tucked against its sides. It was flying low to the ground instead of running. iThat's cheating!/i Sonic's mind screamed. He was supposed to race a ground craft, not an aircraft! Oh well, he could beat an aircraft.  
  
The pair flashed down the highway, Sonic slightly in the lead and thankful he had practiced this track so many times. He knew every inch of it, and knew when to lean for the left turn that led up the ridge road. The robot swung wide, its legs unfolding and clawing at the ground for a purchase as it turned, and Sonic's lead increased only by two feet. iSo that's what those legs are for/i, Sonic thought.  
  
They streaked up the road that climbed toward the ridge, flying over turns and low hills. The robot was gaining on Sonic, narrowing his lead inch by inch. Sonic was running on instinct now, conscious of the robot only as an obstacle he must avoid. They swept along the ridge road, around the turns, and over the magnetic tacks. Three of them stuck in the soles of Sonic's shoes, but their flat heads prevented them from penetrating the rubber and reaching his feet.  
  
Sonic and the robot flew down the dirt road leading to the highway, which was all downhill. Sonic poured on the speed and so did the cheetah.   
  
As they reached the highway and started their second lap, Robotnik flipped a switch in his hovercraft. A screen flickered on with a remote feed from the camera in the robot's eyes. Tails watched over Robotnik's shoulder, hoping that warning Sonic had been enough. He did not know exactly how his captor intended to kill Sonic.  
  
Robotnik laid his finger on a blue button and waited, watching the screen. Sonic and the cheetah were out of sight now, back on the ridge road and nearing the dangerous area with the tacks.  
  
As the robot rounded a corner and the tacks glinted in the sunlight, Robotnik pressed the button.  
  
***  
  
The heads of the tacks embedded in Sonic's shoes flew off, and in three steps Sonic had pounded the barbs through his soles and into his feet.  
  
Sonic yelped at the sudden pain and instinctively curled into a ball, as he did when travelling at high speeds and needed to stop without hurting himself. But that was what Robotnik had expected he would do.  
  
The robot slammed into him like a soccer player shooting a goal, and Sonic went flying off the edge of the cliff road, still in a spin and unable to stop himself. His robot-slicing spines splintered the guardrail. He dropped like a rock, struck the side of the cliff, and uncurled from his protective ball.  
  
The cheetah-robot skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust and raced back to look over the edge of the cliff. It watched as Sonic whirled and bounced to the bottom of the canyon, causing a small avalanche of pebbles from each spot where he hit. He struck the ground forty feet below and lay in an odd, crumpled position.  
  
***  
  
Tails was watching the live feed over Robotnik's shoulder, and screamed.  
  
Sally bolted toward the road, but Bunnie grabbed her. "Hold up, Sally-girl! Wait until the race is over, maybe it tried to hurt him or somethin'..."  
  
Just as she had known that something awful had happened to Tails, Sally knew that something awful had happened to Sonic. She stood with her fists clenched, panic raging through her. Maybe Sonic would come running up with the robot any second. But why had Tails screamed if nothing bad had happened? She could hear the fox sobbing, and it fanned her panic to greater intensity. Why was he crying? What had happened?  
  
There was a rush of hot air and the shriek of a jet engine, and the cheetah robot flashed by, alone. Her fears were confirmed.  
  
"What do you think of that, Princess?" called Robotnik, his voice oozing glee. "The hedgehog lost to a mere robot. The fox is mine now. And, since I'm in such a good mood right now, I'll give you time to run."  
  
His words did not register. Sally was fighting Bunnie, trying to get away and go after Sonic. Something had happened to him, she might still be able to save him if she could only get to him--  
  
Bunnie was yelling in her face. "Sally, we got to get outta here! He's gonna send the robot after us! Sally! Listen to me! We -- have --- to -- run!"  
  
Sally kept struggling, so Bunnie grabbed her around the waist with her robot arm, lifted the squirrel off her feet, and dashed into the woods. Sally kicked and hit her, screaming, "Let me go! I've got to find Sonic! Sonic, you hear me? I've got to find him!"  
  
"Sal, WE'RE gonna be the hurt ones in a minute," panted Bunnie, glancing back. "Aaugh! Here it comes!"  
  
The robot crashed into the forest at full speed, gouging chunks out of tree trunks with its shoulders, its legs tearing at the underbrush. Sally suddenly realized their danger. "Put me down!" she gasped. "Go that way! That way!"  
  
Bunnie dropped her and the two sprinted away at an angle, dodging through the trees, which grew in dense clumps here near the forest borders. The robot slowed behind them, unable to speed through the trees and brush without taking damage. They heard its jet engine sputter and die behind them.  
  
They took a roundabout route back to Knothole, constantly doubling back to listen for pursuit and sniff for exhaust. But the robot had given up, as it lacked the high-tech tracking systems Robotnik bestowed on SWATbots.  
  
Sally and Bunnie were both in tears when they slid down into the cave in Knothole, and sat at the bottom of the slide, holding each other, gasping for breath between sobs. Antoine, who had been waiting for them, hurried up. "What is wrong? Sonic, he is lose?"  
  
"Sonic's been hurt," panted Sally, trying to get a grip on herself. "Come on, we have to get out there to the race course again. He may be ... " She could not bring herself to say 'dead'. "Get the medical stuff, hurry!" 


	6. Chapter 6

***  
  
Sonic lay motionless at the foot of the cliff. The sun beat down on the rocks and scrubby brush around him and the air hung thick and still. After a while a few flies appeared and investigated the blood that trickled from the gashes on his body. Finding him motionless, the flies settled on his wounds, paying special attention to a wide graze on the side of his head where the fur had been scraped away.  
  
Still the sun burned down, and Sonic did not move. A bird flew to a clump of brush, twittered, and flew off down the canyon. Presently another bird flew over, this one a buzzard, circling high over the canyon and sniffing for death. After a while another joined it. They settled lower and lower, looking for danger and seeing none.  
  
The flies rose up in a buzzing cloud as the buzzards swooped down and landed beside the lump of blue on the rocks. One walked up and investigated the creature, while the other bird stood guard, peering up and down the canyon.  
  
The guard buzzard gave a hoarse croak, and the two black birds fluttered away from their meal. Another hedgehog was creeping down the canyon, eyes wide and alert, as if hunting. He was brown and wore only a pair of soft leather shoes.  
  
In a moment he reached the spot where the buzzards had been, and stood looking down at the body of a blue hedgehog. The brown hedgehog stared at it in shock for several seconds, then peered up at the cliff and the broken guardrail.  
  
The brown hedgehog pressed two fingers into Sonic's neck, seeking a pulse. There was none. He turned Sonic over and looked into his face with sorrow. Whoever this blue stranger was, he deserved a decent burial among civilized Mobians. He picked up the limp body and strode away down the canyon with it.  
  
Several miles south, the canyon opened out in what had once been a wide lake. Carved into the canyon walls were several caves, where a tattered village of Mobitropolis refugees lived in hiding. As he stepped into sight, his daughter dashed out to him--a dirty pink hedgehog--and asked, "What's that, Daddy?"  
  
"A dead hedgehog I found near the road," he told her. "Go back in the house, Amy. I don't want you to see this."  
  
But Amy was staring at the dead hedgehog, eyes wide. "What happened to him?"  
  
"Go in the house, Amy."  
  
"What are you going to do with him?"  
  
"Amy--"  
  
She knew she could not push her father any further, and turned to go back to the cave. "Daddy, I think he's still alive," she threw over her shoulder.  
  
The brown hedgehog looked down at the blue hedgehog doubtfully. He could feel no pulse, but his daughter had an uncanny way of reaching minds. He often wondered if she had sympath abilities that were beginning to show. Well, if Amy said the hedgehog was alive, maybe there was a chance they could save him.  
  
He carried the stranger into a cave and laid him down on a stone shelf that served as a hospital bed whenever someone had an injury. Then he walked to a tunnel that ran parallel to the cliff and called, "Ranith, I've got a problem here."  
  
A tall, thin ground squirrel emerged from the tunnel. He had the pinched, nerdy look of someone who has been in school too long, and his hands twitched as he strode over to look at Sonic. He pulled a dusty pair of glasses out of a vest pocket, pinched them on his nose, and examined Sonic. "Where did you find him, Kaysar?"  
  
"Down by the old ridge road," said the brown hedgehog, whose name was Kaysar. "I thought he was dead. There were flies and vultures all over him."  
  
"Hmm." Ranith began to poke and prod his motionless patient, once in a while sniffing and adding, "Hmm." After a while he said cryptically, "He should be dead." He stalked out of the cave, leaving Kaysar standing beside the stone shelf. A few minutes later he returned with a badger in tow. The badger was old by Mobian standards, and her gray muzzle was turning white.  
  
Ranith pointed to Sonic. "Broken spine. Broken arms. Broken ribs. Fractured skull. Concussion. Possible internal hemorrhaging."  
  
With each new aliment, the badger nodded, her smile growing wider. As the doctor finished his list, she clapped her paws and said, "Give me ten minutes. I have all the materials in my cave."  
  
Ranith had never seen the doctor consult Skratcher before. As she left, he whispered, "What do you want with that old witch?"  
  
"Witch nothing," said Ranith, staring down at the motionless Sonic. "She knows every herb in the forest. I've seen her take on cases as bad as this and pull them out of it, too. Do you know how he fell into the canyon?"  
  
"The guardrail was broken," said Kaysar. "I think he broke through somehow."  
  
"I suppose a fall like that could smash him up," said the ground squirrel with a sigh. "But it looks like he was hit by a moving vehicle."  
  
Kaysar shot a puzzled look at the blue hedgehog. "You think someone tried to murder him?"  
  
"There was no one around, was there?"  
  
"No. I made certain of that."  
  
The squirrel and hedgehog looked at their patient, who had suddenly taken on additional mystique. As they stood there, Skratcher returned, carrying three baskets full of grasses, dried plants, and packages of powders. Ranith shooed out Kaysar. "Leave this to us. We'll try to save him."  
  
Kaysar stood outside the cave for a moment, then shrugged and trotted back down the canyon. His foraging had been interrupted, and it was time to return to work.  
  
***  
  
Sally ran along the ridge road, panting in the noon heat, scanning the curving road for any sign of Sonic. Around each bend she expected to see blood and blue quills, but so far she had seen nothing odd. Bunnie slogged along behind her, carrying a medical kit and pausing now and then to look down into the canyon.  
  
"Sonic!" Sally cried, rounding yet another bend. "Where could he be?"  
  
Something clinked underfoot, and she noticed the road was strewn with tacks. She picked one up. The head was attached magnetically, and she wondered if they could be removed on command. Her heart sinking with dread, she hurried on up the road.  
  
Two turns later, she saw the broken guardrail. She dashed to it and looked over the edge of the cliff. She couldn't see Sonic, but she knew he must be down there. "Bunnie!" she yelled. "He went through, he went through here..." Her voice cracked. Recklessly she swung around and began to clamber down the canyon wall, not caring if she fell or not.   
  
A moment later Bunnie appeared at the top of the cliff. "Sally, what the hoo-ha are you doing?"  
  
"Sonic's down here," Sally said, looking up with a maniac glint in her eyes. "They must have knocked him off, and I'm going down to him." She continued descending, slipping and half-falling, fearless in her haste.  
  
To her vague surprise, she reached the bottom unhurt. Sally peered up and down the canyon, but there was no Sonic. Maybe he was hidden behind a rock. She began to search, calling his name and holding back the hysterical sobs jamming her throat. "Can you see him?" she called to Bunnie.  
  
"No," Bunnie called down. She was walking along the edge of the cliff, peering down. "Nowhere."  
  
"But where could he have gone?" Sally panted. She remembered Tails's scream and her certainty that something horrible had happened to Sonic. But what if Tails had only seen Sonic break through the guardrail? What if Sonic had landed on his feet and was on his way home right now?  
  
Part of her wanted to believe this, but deep down she knew Sonic would have come up fighting. He would not have retreated in secrecy to the Great Forest, even if he had been hurt. But where had he gone?  
  
"Maybe he went home," said Bunnie from above.  
  
"I'm going to walk that way," said Sally. "You walk along up there and see if you can spot him. He's probably hurt and can't run. That's all."  
  
Sally and Bunnie began to work their way north, in the opposite direction from the way Kaysar had come.  
  
***  
  
Tails had aged. Between the time he had seen Sonic plunge over the cliff, and the time when Robotnik had traveled back to Robotropolis, the fox had aged ten years. He had cried at first in the shock of seeing Sonic fall, but when Robotnik laughed at him, Tails fell silent.  
  
By the time he was wheeled into the control room by a robot, the fox's grief had turned into a raging, reckless hatred. He wanted to kill Robotnik with his bare hands. Better yet, his teeth. But a quiet corner of his mind reminded him that this was imprudent, and there would come a time for revenge later. Right now it was most important to find out what Robotnik was going to do now.  
  
Sonic was gone ... at the very thought Tails wanted to collapse and die. He had seen the video feed from the robot as Sonic tumbled down the cliff. No one could survive that, not even Sonic. He kept did not make a sound, but tears trickled down his muzzle.  
  
For a few hours Robotnik and Snively ignored him. The two were busy at the computer terminals and spoke only in grunts. This was fine with Tails, whose grief was an all-consuming monster that had swallowed him, leaving only one small, calm corner that had surfaced on the way back to Robotropolis. This bit of sanity assured him that he wanted to keep as quiet as possible. He sat in a corner of his cage and cried in silence.  
  
He did not move when Snively walked up and peered at him. "Sir, what are we going to do with this thing?"   
  
Tails stared at him, and noticed Snively dropped his eyes after a moment.  
  
"It's a hostage," said Robotnik without turning from his computers. "Perhaps I could swap it for Princess Sally."  
  
"Why not just robotize it?"  
  
Robotnik turned around, arms folded. "Did I say that we should robotize it?"  
  
"No sir..."  
  
"You've grown some spine lately, Snively, and I don't like it. I am the one who gives the orders. You are the one who obeys them. Don't forget that, or you could be the one in the robotizer."  
  
Tails watched this with faint interest. He didn't know that Snively was threatened with robotization, too. He watched as Snively groveled and apologized.   
  
Robotnik walked up to the cage and peered in at the fox. "What do you say, fox? Should I robotize you or keep you alive?"  
  
"Robotize me," Tails whispered.   
  
Robotnik threw back his head and laughed. "Oh ho, so the fox was attached to Sonic, was he? I heard the way you screamed. And now life's not worth living and all that rot, right?"  
  
Tails refused to answer. In a detached sort of way, he noticed how ugly Robotnik was, and wondered if all humans looked the same.  
  
"I don't think we'll robotize this one yet," said Robotnik, turning to Snively. "For one thing, it has two tails. I would like to run some tests and figure out the cause of the mutation."  
  
"Toxic waste," muttered Tails.  
  
Robotnik's laugh was like the roar of some carnivorous animal. Even Snively cracked a smile, but Tails gazed at the two of them as if they were the curiosities in a cage, instead of the other way around. His grief was so great that the world had lost its reality. At that moment he would have killed them both if he could have, and still remained detached.  
  
One thing he was certain of, though. Life without Sonic would be short. 


	7. Chapter 7

***  
  
Sonic awoke in a dark place. He lay where he was, his head throbbing, inhaling the scents of foreign herbs and a strange room. Was he in Knothole? It must be the middle of the night, for it was pitch black. There were muffled voices outside ... the whole village must be awake.  
  
He tried to turn his head and discovered his head was pinched between two pieces of wood. The tiny movement sent a hot pain through his neck. He tried to move his arms and discovered they were in casts. And his legs...  
  
Below his waist was nothing. It was as if he had been cut in half--there was nothing there. Why was it so dark? He wanted to see! He struggled feebly, but stopped when pain erupted throughout his body. But there was no pain from his legs. Where were his legs?  
  
"Hello?" he croaked. He heard a door open and several people walk in. It must be very dark outside, for he saw no light from the opening door. Or maybe his eyes were bandaged.  
  
"He's awake," said one voice in surprise. Sonic felt a hand touch him lightly on the chest, and another on his forehead. "Lie still. We've got your head in a vice. Your back is broken."  
  
"You ... the doctor?" Sonic asked, struggling to form words.  
  
"Yes, I'm Doctor Ranith."  
  
"My ... legs?"  
  
There was a pause, and Sonic's stomach knotted. "Paralyzed?" he whispered.  
  
"Yes," said the doctor. "We lack the facilities to treat you better, but my assistant says she knows a treatment for spinal injuries. If we act fast, you may regain the use of your legs in the next few days."  
  
Another pair of hands touched Sonic's face, and a cup was held to his lips. "Drink this," said a raspy female voice. "It's the beginning of the treatment."  
  
Sonic drank it, although it tasted like mud mixed with grass. He didn't want to be paralyzed. He wanted to run. As the cup was withdrawn, he relaxed and lay still. How had he got here? His memory was scattered like broken pieces of a mirror, with only bits and pieces here and there. He remembered a wooden railing, and the glint of the sun on metal, and a feeling of fear and desperation. But trying to connect the pieces made his head pound.  
  
"Try to rest now," said the doctor's voice. "We'll check in when it's time for the next draught."  
  
They left him alone in the dark with his pain and his fragmented thoughts. His arms hurt, his sides hurt when he inhaled, and his head was throbbing as if something had hit him. His back hurt whenever he tried to move. He wanted to go back to sleep, but now that he was awake, the pain was horrible. He half wished that it were worse so he would faint and escape it.  
  
After a while he heard the door open and heard the light, trotting footsteps of someone young. "Hi," said a girl's voice. "I'm Amy. My dad found you. What's your name?"  
  
"Sonic." At least he still knew his name.  
  
"Where ...?"  
  
"Dad calls it Petra, but everyone else just calls it Home. This is one of the caves. We all live in caves here."  
  
"What time ... is it?" he asked her.  
  
"Oh, five or six. The sun's not down yet."  
  
His breathing sped up. Oh no. He didn't need this, oh no, please. "But ... it's dark."  
  
He heard Amy's breathing in his ear as she leaned close to him. "How many fingers am I holding up?"  
  
Darkness. Pitch darkness.  
  
"Can't see."  
  
"Oh my gosh," said Amy. "You must be blind."  
  
The blunt statement in an honest little girl's voice tore through Sonic's brain like a lightning bolt. Blind. He was blind. Paralyzed and blind. The two absolute worst things that could ever happen to him.  
  
Lying there, helpless and suffering, he began to cry.  
  
***  
  
Amy sat on a stool beside the shelf where the blue hedgehog lay, and was distressed to see his tears. She had never seen boys cry before. Girls, yes, but not boys. She had always assumed boys didn't know how to cry. But now this poor stranger was crying, his useless eyes fixed on the ceiling.  
  
"Don't cry, Sonic," she said, wiping his face, for he could not move his arms to do it himself. "You'll get better. Skratcher can cure anything."  
  
"Blind," he whispered, incapable of voicing the horror and shock he felt.  
  
Amy patted his cheek the way her mother did, and whispered, "Shh. It'll be all right."  
  
She sat with him until he slipped into an exhausted sleep. Then she left the cave and found Ranith standing outside. He had overheard everything.  
  
"He's blind," she told him.  
  
"Yes," he said heavily. "I wondered if he might have some brain swelling. His sight may return in time, and it may not. But at least he's alive."  
  
"Yeah," said Amy, looking over her shoulder at the bandaged hedgehog on the bed. "Poor, poor Sonic."  
  
***  
  
Sally sat at the table in the underground war room in Knothole, staring at the wall. Sonic was nowhere to be found. They had combed the canyon for him until she and Bunnie were ill from the heat. Sonic was gone.  
  
The only explanation she had was that another robot had come behind Robotnik and taken Sonic's body to Robotropolis. It was a thin theory, but might explain why Robotnik had chased herself and Bunnie into the woods. But that could also be attributed to Robotnik's malicious sense of humor.  
  
She rested her head in her hands and cried for a few minutes. Then she resumed staring at the wall as her thoughts chased themselves in circles. Sonic must have been taken to Robotropolis. In which case he may have been robotized already. She could check the records.  
  
Sally opened Nicole's screen and instructed her to make a wireless connection to the mainframe. The computer did as instructed. "Sally, air quality is poor in Robotropolis today. Connection may be faulty."  
  
"Okay. Look for robotization records," said Sally. Dealing with bad air quality was an everyday occurrence. The only time the city's air pollution problem cleared up was during a winter windstorm.  
  
Nicole displayed the latest robotizer records, and Sally studied them. The robotizer had last run at 8:35 AM, before the race had taken place. Neither Sonic nor Tails had been robotized, she was relieved to see. She commanded Nicole to search the medical records (maybe one of them had been committed to Robotnik's "experimental" hospital?), but came up nil. Record-wise, Robotropolis had been quiet lately.  
  
Uh oh.  
  
She paged back through the records. Yes, activity had dropped off sharply a little over a week ago, about the time she had bombed the refinery. A drop in activity precipitated some new scheme of Robotnik's, as his attention wandered from tormenting Mobians to constructing some horrible machine.  
  
She called up factory charts and invoices, and saw that production had been increased. He was building something ... lots of them. She tried to access the current design database, and hit a password prompt. These things were always password protected. "Nicole, decode encryption," she said.  
  
"Working, Sally," replied the computer.  
  
Halfway through the decryption process the connection was terminated, and Sally had to reconnect. She restarted the decoder program and waited, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. If Robotnik tried something, without Sonic or Tails it could be difficult to stop him. She felt crippled without having Sonic to run a recon mission. iOh Sonic, where are you?/i  
  
The decryption finished, and Sally accessed the design database. The things being built looked like tanks with chainsaws protruding from the front. This chainsaw could swivel in any direction. There were also hovertrucks in production, all with flat beds.  
  
She paged through the designs, and made the connection. Robotnik was going to assault the Great Forest itself.  
  
Frantically she searched for something that would tell her how many units had been produced. Maybe there was still time to sabotage them. Maybe they could stop production.  
  
She found a table of numbers, and studied it.  
  
Two minutes later she was pounding on the door of Rotor's workshop. The walrus let her in, trying to pretend he had been working and not standing about, planning futile attempts to find Sonic.  
  
"Rotor," she panted, thrusting Nicole into his hands, "we need to find the biggest weakness these machines have."  
  
He looked down at a mechanical drawing of a tank with a chainsaw. "What's this?"  
  
"It's part of a logging unit," said Sally. "The first squadron is coming today. They're going to cut down the Great Forest." 


	8. Chapter 8

***  
  
Tails sat in his cage, gazing at the computer screens. Robotnik was pacing back and forth in front of the wall-length console, supervising the launch of his robotic logging crew. Snively was sitting in a swivel chair, watching a screen and tapping a key now and then. The process of chopping down trees was automated--all they had to do was transfer the units out to the forest, a distance of five miles.  
  
Tails squinted at the screens, trying to read them. He was just a little too far away. He rocked back and forth slightly, wondering if his cage would shift on its wheels. He felt it move. He rocked some more, trying to roll it closer to the console without attracting attention. If he could only read those screens! He might be able to figure out what was going on.  
  
Robotnik noticed his efforts. "Look here, the fox wants to see!" He walked up and pushed the cage up near the console. "I'm going to cut down the Great Forest, and now you have a front-row seat."  
  
"Oh no, Brer Fox, not the briar patch," Tails thought in quiet glee. He looked from one screen to another, figuring out how they worked and what buttons controlled what monitors. As for cutting down the Great Forest, he knew for a fact that several acres of bog stood between Knothole and Robotropolis. Any machines would have a fit trying to cross that. And by then Sally would have figured out some way to sabotage the machines. No, all Tails wanted was a closer look at the way the mainframe was run.  
  
He sat and watched with such rapt attention that Snively grew nervous. "Sir," he said to Robotnik, "is it a good idea to let it so near the computers?"  
  
Robotnik looked at Tails and mistook the fox's attention for fear. "It's going to see its home destroyed. What's wrong with letting it watch?"   
  
Snively didn't answer, but gazed at Tails from time to time and sucked his lower lip. Tails didn't care. Sonic was gone, and there was nothing worse they could do to him. And so he watched the screens, trying to memorize everything he saw.  
  
***  
  
The first squadron of transports did not reach the Great Forest. Sally and Bunnie Rabbot hid a short distance from the trail and shot holes in the fuel tanks of the trucks. When the fuel began to dribble out, Sally shot a flare at it, and the pair fled as the trucks burst into flames.  
  
In the control room, Robotnik howled with fury and vented his rage by kicking Tails's cage several times, as if it were Tails's fault. Tails examined the dents left in the cage wall by Robotnik's boot. The steel was reinforced from the outside, and could be damaged by blows from the outside. Hmm. Maybe Robotnik would be kind enough to smash open the cage for Tails.  
  
As the day went on, two more convoys were damaged or destroyed by Freedom Fighter activity, and Robotnik kicked Tails's cage over and over.  
  
Tails disliked being kicked at, and whenever it happened, an animal rage reared up in him that made him want to snarl and snap and attack the bars. He fought this down and wondered at himself, then remembered a book he had read where they made dogs fight by putting them in cages and poking them with sticks. Now he knew how those dogs felt.  
  
At sundown Robotnik and Snively left the control room for a break, leaving Tails alone in the control room. He immediately stood up as high as he could in the cage, trying to see up on the console. He had noticed a tool box up there earlier, probably for maintaining the innards of the computers. He pressed his head against the top of the cage, straining to see. The toolbox was further down. He threw himself against one wall of his cage to roll it in that direction, and to his horror the cage toppled over.  
  
His attempts to get it upright again proved fruitless, and he was forced to sit and wait for his captors to return. Robotnik may not make anything of the knocked-over cage, but Snively ... Tails trusted Snively less than Robotnik. Snively was the sort to put a bullet in Tails's head and fake astonishment when they found him dead.  
  
Tails hated them both.  
  
***  
  
There was no painkiller available in Petra, and Sonic had to suffer the torment of his broken body without the aid of drugs. On top of that the cave was hot, and he sweated under his bandages. He passed the day in a stupor, moaning without knowing it. Sometimes Amy was with him, and other times the badger Skratcher was bending over him, holding a cup of some gruesome herbal substance to his lips. Sometimes it would be the doctor Ranith, taking his temperature or watching him.  
  
Sometimes Sonic spoke to them, but it took a Herculean effort to summon the energy around the pain. And the pain only grew worse as the day wore on. And so as the logging robots were foiled over and over near the Great Forest, Sonic suffered in a little hidden village in the canyon.  
  
As the sun sank, Skratcher forced a herbal infusion down Sonic even more horrible than the ones she had made him drink all day. Sonic coughed and sputtered as the liquid burned its way down his throat, protested feebly, and fell asleep at once.  
  
When Ranith looked questioning, the badger said, "The poor bloke has suffered enough. I gave him a sleeping draught."  
  
"It's the most powerful one I've ever seen," said the doctor, and sniffed. "And the most aromatic." The room reeked of a sweet, minty smell.  
  
"It does more than make him sleep," said Skratcher, laying back her short ears. "Let him be. If he's going to heal, he needs rest." She pushed past the ground squirrel and left the cave, leaving Ranith looking down at Sonic.  
  
"Live, you," he growled.  
  
***  
  
Sonic slept without dreaming, and woke sometime the next day feeling sick in his head. He lay there for a while before he noticed that the pain was less. He moved slightly--little more than tightening his muscles--to test it, and yes, the pain was less. It had to be those foul things that one person was making him drink. Oh, but if only he could see!  
  
He lay in his own personal darkness, listening and trying to figure out what time it was. After a while he heard the footsteps he had come to know as Amy's. "Hi, Sonic!" she chirped.  
  
"Hi," he whispered. "What time is it?"  
  
"About ten in the morning," she said.  
  
He heard the scrape of a stool being drawn up to his bedside. "Am I better?" he whispered.  
  
"Do you feel better?"  
  
"I don't ... hurt."  
  
"That's good!" Her voice became cheerful. "Skratcher says that if you're going to recover, the biggest recovery will be made within the next few days. She says your spine might heal."  
  
"Oh." Sonic was glad for this possibility, but he also wanted to know about his eyes. Before he could say anything, Amy chattered on, "She and Ranith--he's our doctor--they think your spinal cord might have just been pinched. You can break your backbones without breaking your spinal cord."  
  
"Oh." Sonic had never heard this, and wondered how much he ought to trust medical jargon parroted to him by a young girl.  
  
Amy left this topic and moved on to others, telling him how so and so had had a litter, and how someone else had found a salt lick, and how some other person was working on a way to run pipes from a spring to the caves. Sonic let her chatter wash over him, grateful for her company, which broke up the monotony of listening to passersby and having nothing to take his mind off his pain.  
  
He heard Skratcher come in--she had a shuffling gait--and waited for the inevitable horrible sludge to be held to his lips. It came, and he gulped it down, accepting water afterwards. "How do you feel?" came the raspy voice of the badger.  
  
"I don't hurt so much," he croaked, trying to sound strong.  
  
"Good," said the raspy voice, sounding satisfied. "It's working. You may get your legs back in another few days."  
  
"But my eyes?" he asked.  
  
There was a brief pause, then Skratcher said, "That's from your head injury. Your sight might return in time, if that part of your brain hasn't been damaged."  
  
He listened to her shuffle out, and thought about brain damage. His head did hurt an awful lot. How much was concussion and how much was brain damage? Or was a concussion brain damage? He wished he had paid more attention to biology in school.  
  
Amy was still there, and he felt her pat his shoulder, just above his cast. "Don't worry. There was this guy who tangled with Robotnik's robots, and they tore him up and left him for dead a mile from here. Skratcher and Ranith patched him up and he's good as new. He kind of limps, though."  
  
"Bet he wasn't blind," Sonic thought, gazing hopelessly into the darkness. Still, there was a hope his vision might return, along with the feeling in his legs. He would cling to hope and ride out the road to recovery. He had a feeling there was something he had forgotten to do, something urgent... 


	9. Chapter 9

Days passed. Sally was at sixes and sevens trying to battle Robotnik's automated machines without her primary soldier, Sonic. She relied on Bunnie for backup and ran most of the missions herself, destroying convoys that reached the Great Forest despite her best efforts.  
  
The machines were cruelly efficient. While she was immobilizing one squad, another came in behind it and began felling timber. Half an acre had been stripped before Sally and Bunnie stopped the machines.  
  
The day after, the cut lumber was hauled quietly back to Robotropolis while Sally was planning their attack. She pulled Antoine and Rotor in, and wished they had more Freedom Fighters. There simply weren't enough of them to hold off the convoys, and they could not fight forever. The heatwave persisted, and Sally was wearing out. Her energy was less and less each day, and she could see the growing fatigue in Bunnie's eyes. On top of that, laser cartridges were running low.  
  
After nine days of this losing battle, Robotnik began sending convoys at night. Twenty-four hours a day, hundreds of machines and trucks rolled in, cut timber, and hauled it off. The Freedom Fighters could not stop them all, and every day there were wider fields of stumps as the machines cut into the forest.  
  
It was cruel, it was destructive, it was brilliant. Sally had to admit that the scheme was one she would have been proud of had she been in Robotnik's place. He knew their main weakness was that they were few, and that they relied on the forest for protection. Without that protection, and without Sonic, they were all but powerless.  
  
She wasn't even able to try to rescue Tails, although she wanted to. No one could be spared, and she still could not locate him through the computers. It was as if he had vanished upon entering Robotropolis. She hoped they had not executed him, but there was nothing she could do. She could not even plan a rescue mission without information.  
  
She sat at the table in the Knothole cave, which had become her home as of late, and stared at a topographical map of the Great Forest. The bog outside of Knothole was outlined in yellow ink, and Robotnik's progression had been marked with red pins. His robots had formed a V, and were cutting their way steadily into the heart of the Great Forest. If they kept going the direction they were going, they would strike the bog in another week. Knothole might be safe for a while, but what about the rest of the forest? She didn't want to see it leveled. It broke her heart to see the old, majestic trees felled by mindless robots, and to see the acres of stumps where there had once been pristine forest.  
  
They had to do something. She couldn't figure out what, though. Fire was not option with the woods drying up in the heat. They had taken to walking up to the machines and puncturing the fuel tanks with a large pike braced against the ground. But Robotnik was learning, and sometimes there were repair robots accompanying the convoy. She had to destroy those first.  
  
Sally held her face in her hands. She was so helpless--oh, if only Sonic was still here!  
  
***  
  
Tails was taken for "testing", which involved being stuck with needles and having chunks gouged out of him. Tissue samples, Snively called them.  
  
The fox felt as if he were losing his grip on reality. Had Sonic really died, or had his past life been some kind of dream? He felt like he had always lived in the cage and been treated like an animal, been peered at by humans and poked with needles. He found himself fantasizing about biting Snively and Robotnik, usually on the face or throat, and worrying them to death. His watch became his link to sanity.  
  
He took off his ultra-watch whenever they removed him from the cage, and put it on again when they returned him. He would play for hours with the compass and the calculator, but he never used the light for fear of attracting attention. He would make up complicated math problems, solve them in his head, and check them on the calculator. He would lie and watch his compass balance, the needle swiveling to point north.  
  
Tails never talked. Sonic had told them not to tell them anything, so he was going to do that. He wondered if not talking contributed to his slow regression into an animal. Talking used a different part of his mind than did the base instincts to attack and kill, and lately he had been concentrating on his instincts. He was going to survive if it killed him, and if he had to go wild to do it, then he would go wild.  
  
If Robotnik and Snively noticed that Tails's eyes were developing a shifty, cunning look, they gave no sign. They spent their time commanding and directing the logging convoys, and laughing at the feeble attempts of the Freedom Fighters to deter them. It was during these periods that Tails's mind shut down, and he snarled in silence, wishing one of them would stick a hand in, just once, so he could bite it off.  
  
Things were building to a head. The Freedom Fighters were buckling and Tails was losing his mind. And each day, the logging units neared the swamp.  
  
***  
  
During the two horrid weeks of the assault on the forest, Sonic lay on his bed in Petra, his pain lessening day by day. His body's healing capabilities had been accelerated by the herbal infusions Skratcher was constantly giving him, and one day he awoke to find his feet were tingling so much it felt as if they were on fire.  
  
He knew he should not complain because the feeling was returning to his lower extremities, but it hurt like heck and he could not help it. He told Amy about it when she visited him as usual, and she cheered and acted excited.  
  
Three days after the tingling in his feet began, he opened his eyes and discovered that the unending blackness had turned to a dull gray. When the doctors came in, he saw them as dark blurs, and was elated.  
  
"Your recovery is astonishingly quick," said Ranith, looking sidelong at Skratcher. "Your vision will probably never be as strong as it was, but at least it will return."  
  
"I can deal with weak eyes," said Sonic. "I never read, anyway."  
  
He was fifteen days into his treatment and recovery, and Ranith had removed the wooden splints from his head, saying that Sonic's vertebrae had healed much quicker than he had expected, but that Sonic should not move too suddenly. Sonic could now shift positions and relieve his aching legs and back. He was lying with his head turned, just because he could, when an image flashed into his head: Tails in a cage. A robotic cheetah, seeing it fly over the ground instead of running...  
  
"Oh my gosh," he gasped, horror striking his stomach like a ton of bricks. The cheetah had knocked him over the cliff--he had lost the race! What had happened to Tails? And Sally? She must think he was dead! How long had he been here? What had happened?  
  
Amy came in, and Sonic squinted toward her, willing his eyes to focus. They were a little stronger every day, but he still saw Amy as a pink blur with white spots for eyes. "Amy," he said, "you've got to send someone to Knothole village. It's over in the Great Forest. Tell Sally I'm here, that I'm alive."  
  
"Oh, we guessed you must have come from there," said Amy, sitting down on her usual stool. "We tried to send someone, but he couldn't get through. The forest is being cut down over there."  
  
"WHAT?" Sonic sat up, but had to sink down again as a wave of nausea struck him. "Cut down?" he said, wishing his arms weren't in casts. "What do you mean, cut down?"  
  
"By robots," said Amy, as if talking about events in another country. "They take the trees back to Robotropolis."  
  
Sonic tried to get up again and this time made it to his feet, although he had to lean against the bed for support. "I've got to stop them," he said, panting with the effort.  
  
"Oh no you don't," said Amy, alarmed at seeing him stand when Ranith had told her that under no circumstances was he to get up. She forced him back onto the bed, and Sonic, being weak as water, could not resist her.   
  
"I've got to stop them," he repeated, eyes dilated in panic. "Sally can't hold off robots forever, and where's Tails? Where's Tails gone? Did they kill him?"  
  
Amy had no idea who he was talking about. "I'll go ask," she said. She trotted out of the cave and found Ranith, who was helping a gang of otters connect a pipeline to carry water to the caves. "Sonic's asking questions," she told him. "I think you should come."  
  
Ranith was in the cave with Sonic five minutes. When he came out, Amy saw that he had caught Sonic's panic. "Run and get Skratcher," he said. "We've got to get this hedgehog on his feet." 


	10. Chapter 10

It began the following day.  
  
Tails was sitting in his cage, as usual, gazing at his watch and listening to Robotnik and Snively gloat over how much of the forest they had destroyed, and how they must be nearing Knothole. Tails tried to block them out, but today he could not do it. He was losing his grip, his self-control. Something had to happen soon or he was going to--  
  
"Send the cheetah robot out today," said Robotnik. "We'll see how many of them it can kill."  
  
Tails hit the cage door, snarling and barking, clawing at the bars. He struck the door over and over, trying to break it off its hinges.  
  
Robotnik and Snively stared in stunned silence for a moment. Tails had been a docile captive, and it was a shock to see him go berserk like this. "Time to put him down, I guess," said Snively.  
  
Robotnik thumbed his mustache, watching Tails's furious attempts to break out. "No. Let's put him on a transport headed out to the woods. When his friends 'save' him, he'll probably attack them, too. Won't that be a shock?"  
  
Snively stared at his uncle. "Send him back?"  
  
Robotnik shrugged. "The cheetah will be out there. If they do rescue him, and he doesn't attack them, then the cheetah will finish them off." He grinned. "It might add a little excitement to our day." He pressed a button on the console to summon some SWAT-bots. Tails attacked the bars the whole time he was being lifted and moved out of the fortress, out of the city, and on to a transport.   
  
***  
  
Sally was sitting in a tree that had escaped cutting on the edge of a cleared acre. She watched through binoculars as a long train of hover transports approached, each bearing four of the saw-tanks. There were so many, she realized, heart sinking. Today they would strike the bog, and who knows what would happen. If only she had bigger weapons!  
  
As she watched the gang approach, she saw something else coasting along beside them. She focused her binoculars on it. It was the robot cheetah who had been the cause of Sonic's demise. Her fingers tightened on the binoculars. If she had a grenade or something...  
  
Sally watched from her perch as the cheetah zipped up and down the line of the transports with mind-boggling speed. It was like watching Sonic run. It was patrolling, and she had no doubt that it had come to seek out and kill Freedom Fighters. She would have to see that it was destroyed.  
  
The transports were rolling into their current work area and Sally was preparing to climb out of the tree when a strange sound reached her ears. She grabbed her binoculars again. It sounded like a fox barking--a strange, raspy sound that sounded more like a bird than a fox. It was impossible, but was Tails there somewhere? Yes, yes, there was that blasted cage they kept him in, but what had they done to him? She could see glints of fur moving through the holes in the sides, and she glimpsed him clawing at the door like a mad thing.  
  
Oh no. She lowered her binoculars. They must have driven him crazy with torture, then sent him back. She had heard of Robotnik doing that to other Freedom Fighter bands whom he wished to demoralize. It was even worse than robotization.  
  
But how to get him out without attracting the cheetah-robot's attention? Oh, how she wished Sonic were here!  
  
***  
  
The doctor had made Sonic stay in Petra one more night, but Sonic was strung up and snappish, and had constant visions of Sally lying dead, or Tails robotized, or Knothole gutted and destroyed. His body had healed itself extremely quickly owing to the herbal infusions and his own high metabolism, but he was still weak, and the thought of running his usual speeds of six hundred miles an hour made his head pound. But he could still spindash. He tried it in the privacy of his cave. With a running start, he could curl into a ball of whirling spines that ought to damage a robot, even if it didn't destroy it outright.  
  
The next morning, as Tails was being sent home and Sally was plotting a way to rescue him, Sonic was pulling on his shoes and wrestling his bandaged arms into slings. Thank goodness he didn't use his arms to spindash! But the casts were heavy, and he worried they might slow him down.  
  
Amy stood by and watched, wringing her hands. "Do you have to leave, Sonic?"  
  
"Yes," he said. Ever since his vision and mobility had returned, he had grown more and more annoyed with Amy. She wanted to baby him and play nurse, and he was certain she had a crush on him. All he wanted to do was smash up the robots that were endangering his home.  
  
Ranith entered, looking grave. "Sonic, you plan on entering combat immediately, right?"  
  
"Yep." Sonic straightened, trying to ignore a twinge of pain in his back, and made sure his arms were supported in their casts.  
  
Ranith watched him. "You're not well, Sonic. If you go out there today, you might damage your back irreparably."  
  
"I'll risk it," said Sonic. "I may have a chance to rest, who knows? Sally might have planted land mines or something."  
  
Ranith made a steeple of his fingers and examined them. "If you hurt yourself, send for me and Skratcher."  
  
"You got it," said Sonic, whose mind was on a run through the canyon and the forest beyond. "Can I go now?"  
  
"Yes," said the doctor with a sigh. He and Amy watched as Sonic jogged outside and vanished up the canyon without looking back.  
  
"Will he come back?" Amy asked, tears standing in her eyes.  
  
"I hope not," said Ranith. "Because if he does, it'll be for more treatment, and chances are neither me nor Skratcher will be able to treat him successfully."  
  
"Well, I hope he comes back," said Amy, sniffing. "I like him."  
  
***  
  
Sally's rescue plan of Tails was dangerous, but they lacked the numbers to plan anything safer. Sally would play decoy and lead the cheetah off, sticking to the trees where it could not move quickly. Bunnie Rabbot would sneak in behind and open the cage, for with her robotized arm and legs, it was less likely that Tails would hurt her. Bunnie was to tie him up if he proved violent, and get him to cover as soon as possible. It hurt Sally to issue these instructions, but there was no other way. Maybe there was still hope for the fox, once he was away from torment.  
  
Sally waited until the saw-tanks had been unloaded, and the transport with Tails was standing alone and empty. She drew a deep breath and walked out into the open.  
  
The cheetah was circling the transport with Tails, following its instructions to guard him until other targets appeared. It saw Sally immediately. Its engine screamed, and it shot toward her like a two hundred-pound bullet.  
  
Sally dove into the trees as the cheetah crashed into the woods, gouging chunks out of trees and smashing the brush. She ran, trying to keep it in sight. She knew she could lose it in the woods, because it operated on eye contact, but she wanted to keep its attention. The longer she held it, the more time Bunnie would have to help Tails.  
  
The cheetah deployed its feet and stood for a moment, head swinging as it looked for her. She rattled the brush in front of her. "Here! Here! Over here!"   
  
It whirled and sprang toward her, and Sally dodged and escaped between two close-growing trees with the cheetah almost within clawing distance. The robot stuck between two trees, and it took it a few seconds to dislodge itself. Sally used this time to put some distance between her and it, and look for other close-growing trees where she could hide.  
  
***  
  
As soon as the cheetah went after Sally, Bunnie sprinted out of hiding from the other direction and leaped up on the flat bed of the transport. Tails's cage was lashed down with bungee cords, and there was no movement inside the cage. She looked at the ropes in her hands and hoped she wouldn't have to use them.  
  
Bunnie stooped and looked in the door of the cage. "Tails? You in there?"  
  
He struck the cage door, jaws open and fingers curled into claws. Bunnie jumped back and stared. This wasn't the young fox she had read bedtime stories to. "Tails, it's just me, Bunnie!"  
  
He didn't care, or perhaps he couldn't hear her. Well, there was nothing for it but to use the ropes, which now looked small and flimsy. She unwound one and laid it on the top of the transport. She was aware of how visible they were up there, but she was afraid Tails might escape when she opened the door, and they didn't need that.  
  
She braced herself, held out her metal arm, and opened the door.  
  
Tails exploded out like an orange whirlwind, and she caught him around the neck with her metal arm. He bit her, his teeth clinking on the metal, making horrible snarling sounds. His claws slashed her torso and scrabbled against her robot legs. If she weren't robotized, he would have made mincemeat of her.  
  
She threw him down on the bed of the truck, grabbed his flailing arms and lashed them together with rope. He fought her, snarling and frothing as if he had always been a wild beast. When his arms were tied she had a moment to breathe, for he now rolled two and fro, biting at the ropes and kicking his feet. She didn't want to tie his feet because they needed to run, but he could still bite...  
  
She took a short length of rope, seized his muzzle and tied it shut, even as he snapped at her hands, ears pinned flat and eyes like blue fire. His pupils were contracted into tiny dots, and it was only his two lashing tails that assured her that she had once known him.  
  
The screech of a jet engine. Bunnie looked up to see the cheetah streaking toward them. She gasped, grabbed Tails by the scruff of his neck and dove off the opposite side of the transport. Half-dragging the fox, she made it into the trees an instant before the robot reached her, and she heard it smash into the brush and small trees, its engine sputtering.  
  
***  
  
Sally had gone too far from the cheetah, and panicked when the cheetah's engine sounded, not behind her, but out in the open and moving away from her. It must have seen Bunnie! She pelted back toward the parked transports, arm raised to shield her face from low-hanging branches.  
  
The cheetah was nowhere in sight, but she could hear it on the far side of the transport train, crashing through the brush. She ran toward it, yelling, "Hey! Over here! Over here!"  
  
She realized what she had done when she reached the transports. She was fifty feet from the sheltering trees, and what was more, the cheetah had lost its targets. It emerged from the trees, head swinging to and fro as it scanned for more victims.  
  
"You are dead," a small, taunting voice in her head informed her.  
  
The robot spotted her as she ducked behind the transport and it blasted toward her. It flew over the top of the transport and dove at her, but she rolled underneath the truck and the cheetah struck the truck with an echoing clang.  
  
Sally crawled out on the other side and dashed toward the woods twenty feet away, but the cheetah rocketed after her.  
  
She dropped flat and it roared over her, scrabbling with its legs to turn around. Sally jumped up and reached the trees, jumped behind one, and heard the satisfying crunch of metal hitting wood. But the trees were thin here, and there was nowhere to hide. She ran on, and the robot followed her, using its legs instead of its jet engine.  
  
***  
  
Bunnie was winded and terrified, dragging the growling Tails and listening for sounds of pursuit. The fox was still trying to attack her, and she was beginning to wonder if he had been infected with rabies before he had been released to them. Here she was scratched and bleeding. But there was no time to worry about that now. Tails's ropes were working loose.  
  
She stopped to re-tie them and knelt behind the cover of a hedge, trying to hold down the fox and tighten the ropes with her other hand.  
  
"What do you think you're doing?"  
  
Bunnie shrieked and spun around to see Sonic standing behind her. His arms were in casts and he had the pale, wasted look of someone who has been ill, but his eyes were bright with fury. "Why the heck is he tied up?"  
  
"Sonic!" Bunnie gasped, clutching her chest. "You ... you're alive?"  
  
"Very much so and ticked off into the bargain," snapped Sonic. "What have you done to Tails?"  
  
"He's ... he's mad," Bunnie panted. "Had to tie him. Look what he's done." She lifted her arms and displayed the scratches seeping red across her brown fur.  
  
"No way," said Sonic, stepping forward. "Tails?"  
  
Before Bunnie could stop him, Sonic yanked the ropes off the fox's mouth. The fox lunged forward and sank his teeth into the cast on Sonic's right arm. Sonic fell back, and Bunnie grabbed Tails and held him down. Tails laid there and barked, his lips curled back from white teeth. Up close it was a horrible sound.  
  
"Did Robotnik do something?" asked Sonic, staring spellbound at his sidekick.  
  
"Torture, we think," said Bunnie, struggling to muzzle the fox again. "He's out of his mind--Tails! Stop it! Hold still!"  
  
To her surprise, the fox stopped barking and lay still, panting. Bunnie hesitated to tie his mouth shut. "He remembers his name," she muttered. "Maybe he'll be all right..."  
  
"Where's Sally? What's going on?" asked Sonic, looking around the woods.  
  
"She's off distracting that cheetah-bot," said Bunnie, sneaking looks at Sonic, trying to convince herself that he was alive. "Sugar-hog, where have you BEEN?"  
  
But Sonic was already gone, racing through the woods toward the new clearing.  
  
***  
  
Sally was tiring. A terrible stitch was developing in her side, and her breath tore at her lungs. She could not run much longer, and yet that cheetah kept coming, the claws on its front feet extended. Could it sense she was slowing up? It seemed that it was playing with her, stalking her among the trees.   
  
If she could only get away from it! She had lost it so easily before--but now she couldn't get out of its sight long enough for it to lose its target.  
  
Stumbling in exhaustion, she left the trees and stopped, aghast. She had reached another swath through the forest and there were saw-tanks everywhere, busily working. The cheetah was coming up behind her, and she was trapped.  
  
Faced with two dangers, she chose the lesser one and ran toward the nearest saw-tank with the idea to put it between herself and the cheetah. But she lacked the strength to run, and she heard the shriek of its engine before she had run ten feet. "You're dead now, poor idiot," said that small, smug voice in her head.  
  
The robot's claws struck her with such force she was flung into the air and went tumbling, spinning, and landed in mud with a splash. She lay there, stunned and knowing she was hurt, but unable to feel pain. Somewhere she could hear the screech of the cheetah's engines as it tracked her to finish her off.  
  
"Sally!" a familiar voice gasped. She saw a pair of red sneakers in the mud in front of her. The figure bent over her, but she was too near unconsciousness to recognize it. "He hurt you," she heard her rescuer breathe. Then he screamed, "Buttnik'll PAY for this!"  
  
***  
  
Sonic sprang from Sally's side and dashed for the cheetah, which was blasting straight toward him. Reckless with rage, Sonic ran to meet it head-on. He leaped and curled into a razor-edged spindash.  
  
Sonic and the cheetah collided, and Sonic's spines sliced through the robot's hull like a knife through butter. It exploded, parts flying in all directions, and Sonic tumbled to a halt amid flying debris. He had wanted to do that ever since he had laid eyes on the thing. But his fury had not yet been vented. There were still hundreds of robots cutting down trees--his trees, he thought--and hauling them to Robotropolis. It was an unforgivable sin, and his vengeance began immediately.  
  
***  
  
Sally came to with horrible searing pain along her right leg and side. She sat up and found she was covered in mud. The robot had clawed her, and blood was oozing through the coating of mud on her fur. Grunting with pain, she crawled onto firm ground and sat there, looking around.  
  
Every saw-tank in the area was collapsed with a hole torn through its middle. Bits of metal and machinery littered the ground. She looked around at the carnage, trying to figure out what had happened. It looked ... it looked like Sonic had been there. But that was impossible. Sonic was dead. "You know he's not," the small, smug voice in her head told her. "You never believed he was dead. He's come back and done his job."  
  
She hauled herself to her feet and limped up the trail the machines had made, past more destroyed saw-tanks and hover transports, stepping around bits of rubbish on the ground. It certainly looked like Sonic's work. No one else punched a hole through a machine's vitals the way he did. Her hopes rising, she hurried on, trying to ignore the pain in her leg and side.  
  
She walked all the way back to the first clearing where Tails's cage had been. The machines there had been destroyed, too, and were still smoking. He had just done this. "Sonic?" she called.  
  
She found him lying on the ground on the far side of the path, eyes closed. "Sonic!" she cried, running to him. "You're alive!" She burst into tears, knelt beside him, and threw her arms around him.  
  
"Don't ... touch me," he whispered. "Sal, don't try to move me. I hurt my back again."  
  
Sally withdrew, although it was difficult, for she wanted to touch him and hold him and reassure herself that he had really come back. "Your back?" she said through her tears. "What's the matter with it?"  
  
"They told me not to fight," Sonic whispered through clenched teeth. "I did it anyway. Send somebody to get Ranith at the village down the canyon."  
  
Sally connected the dots at once. So that was why they hadn't found Sonic after the accident! A village in the canyon she didn't know about! "Okay Sonic," she said, getting up and wiping her eyes, leaving muddy streaks across her face. She took two steps and stumbled, pain lancing through her wounds.  
  
"Sal, you're bleeding," Sonic murmured. "Dang, I hate Buttnik!"  
  
Sally laughed to hear the familiar insult, and it gave her strength to stand up and keep moving. "I'll be right back," she promised him, and limped toward Knothole. Antoine could go up the canyon, and she and Rotor could rig up a stretcher for Sonic. 


	11. Epilogue

It was a watch.  
  
Tails couldn't remember how long he had been staring at it. He was dimly aware that he had been locked in this hut for a long time, raging and snarling, hating everything. Days, maybe. But the watch. He remembered it. He used to play math games with it.  
  
He lifted a ragged glove and pressed a button. There was the calculator on the watch's screen. He gazed at it, trying to remember how to do math. What was the multiplication table? His mind was blank. He couldn't remember.  
  
The fox stared at the watch on his wrist, unaware that he had been locked in an empty hut for a week, or that he had torn out several of his claws by attacking the wooden walls, or that no one could get near him. He had a single, simple thought in his head--the watch. His watch that was his link to sanity.  
  
The door cracked open, and his head jerked up, lips automatically curling back in a snarl. Why was he snarling? He forced his face to relax, and watched as someone edged into the room and shut the door behind them.  
  
A blue hedgehog wearing both arms in a cast. As he watched, the hedgehog sat down on the floor across from him. "Hi Tails," said the hedgehog.  
  
iTails. That used to be my name,/i he thought. iI want to attack that hedgehog, but I know I shouldn't. I know that would be the worst thing I could possibly do. But I want to bite him so bad! Calm down. He hasn't made any false moves. Watch him./i  
  
Tails stared at Sonic, and Sonic returned his gaze for a while, then dropped his eyes. He didn't want to appear aggressive by staring too long.   
  
"It's me, Sonic," said Sonic. "I know they told you I was dead, but I'm not. I got rescued by a bunch of Robotropolis refugees." Sonic recounted the story of his recovery, knowing that it was the sound of his voice that would get through to his sidekick. He kept his eyes on the floor, not daring to look at the fox, although he knew Tails was watching him, ears pricked.  
  
"So then I wrecked all the machines, but I hurt my back on the last ones, and Sally and Rotor had to haul me back to Knothole on a stretcher. Ranith and Skratcher came and made me lay on my back in this weird splint thing for three days, and they've forbidden me on pain of death to spindash. Isn't that terrible?"  
  
It might have been his imagination, but he thought Tails gave the ghost of a nod.  
  
"Ranith and Skratcher examined you, too, and they said you're not sick or anything, its just that your mind snapped under whatever torture they did to you, and it might heal if you're just left alone. So they let me come in here because I'm your best friend, and I might get through to you. It's been a whole day now since you stopped barking."  
  
"Sonic," Tails whispered. It was the first word he had spoken since his vow of silence in the cage in the control room.  
  
Sonic looked up, unable to look at the floor any longer. Tails was still staring at him, but his pupils were dilated now, instead of being fiercely contracted as they had been for so long. His face was softening, losing the taut, frantic look. "Tails?" said Sonic quietly. "Do you understand me?"  
  
The fox nodded, and held up his wrist so Sonic could see the watch. "I played math games," he said.  
  
"Math games?" said Sonic. "On your calculator?"  
  
"Yeah," said Tails. "It worked for a while. But it wasn't enough. I stopped talking. You said not to tell them anything, so I didn't."  
  
"Good for you."  
  
"Yeah. Then Robotnik would kick my cage when he got mad. It started driving me crazy. And he was always laughing about killing you. I wanted to bite him."  
  
"Too bad you didn't." Sonic watched Tails. The fox was coming to himself the more he talked, as if the act of forming words were healing him.  
  
"Yeah, but I tried. I tried to bite Snively, too, but they were too smart. They only handled me with robots. They did tests and stuff on me. I tried to keep from getting mad, because when I did I wanted to bite them, but then I couldn't take it anymore, and I..." Tails trailed off and frowned. "I can't remember." He looked around at the inside of the hut. "Where are we?"  
  
"Knothole," said Sonic. "You've been off your nut for a week now."  
  
Tails rubbed his head, then stared at his ragged, bloodstained gloves. "Sonic? What ... what did I do?"  
  
Sonic explained how Robotnik had sent Tails out to Knothole in an attempt to demoralize them. As he recounted the story, Tails went to sit beside Sonic, still staring at his torn gloves. Then he saw the deep bitemark in Sonic's cast, and he stared at it in horror when Sonic mentioned how Tails had sprang at him and bit him.  
  
Tails ran his tongue around his teeth. He had done that? Now he was getting scared. He huddled up against Sonic as if trying to hide from the monster he had become.  
  
They talked for an hour, and Tails clung to Sonic, talking to the point of babbling, getting over the horrors of living in a cage and being treated like a non-sentient animal. After an hour, Sonic climbed to his feet, Tails helping him. "I shouldn't really be walking," he said with a sheepish grin. "They only let me come out here because they were desperate to help you. And I'm the only one who can do that."  
  
Sonic knocked on the door, and it was opened from the outside. Sally looked in anxiously. "Are you okay? Tails! Tails, are you okay?"  
  
"I am now," said Tails. "Sonic's hurt and he shouldn't be in here."  
  
Sonic and Tails stepped out of Tails's impromptu prison, and Tails and Sally helped Sonic limp back to his hut, where he laid down with a sigh. "Another month before these casts come off," he told Tails. "You have no idea what it's like to have no hands. If my nose itches, I can't scratch it."  
  
"I had mine tied up once," said Tails. "I was trying to run and I kept falling, and I couldn't steady myself ... um..." He trailed off, frowning. Sonic looked at Sally.  
  
Sally stuck her head out the door and called for Bunnie Rabbot, who entered the hut a moment later. She looked at Tails warily. "Is he better?"  
  
"I'm good," said Tails. He looked at the bandages on her stomach. "What happened to you?"  
  
Bunnie fingered them. "Oh, nothing. I was in a wrestling match."  
  
"You do wrestling?" Tails exclaimed, eyes popping. "Whoa! Did someone hit you with a chair?"  
  
Bunnie smiled and relaxed visibly. "Nothing that serious, punkin. Glad you're okay." She hugged him, but Tails pulled away with a start.  
  
"I did that. I scratched you. I remember."  
  
Bunnie shrugged. "It's not much. It's almost healed now."  
  
Tails's eyes filled with tears. "I hurt you, Bunnie. I thought you were trying to hurt me! I'm sorry!" He flung his arms around her middle and burst into tears.  
  
"There there," said Bunnie, patting him on the back. "You're all better now, and nobody can blame you for going crazy around Robotnik and Snively. They're enough to drive anyone crazy."  
  
Tails smiled through his tears. "They sure are."  
  
***  
  
Robotnik kicked the console, a stream of profanity pouring from him. The cheetah robot had been destroyed, the hostage had been rescued, and what was worse, all of his logging robots had been destroyed by Sonic. All of them!  
  
He didn't know what infuriated him more, that all of his equipment was now scrap, or that Sonic had somehow survived. Maybe he was merely hurt and in Knothole all along, recovering. And at the last minute--the very last second--Sonic had come out to fight!  
  
Robotnik smashed his fist on the console and regretted it, for two of the screens filled with gibberish. "Snively!" he roared, rubbing his hand. "Get in here and fix this!"  
  
Snively hurried in, lugging a toolbox and sporting a bandage on his head. He said nothing, but set to work unscrewing the crushed keyboard. Robotnik stalked back and forth behind him, still cursing. He was in an unspeakably foul mood, and had punished Snively for selling him a faulty plan.   
  
And now they were down one hostage, and all the machines were destroyed. Robotnik knew that he could easily build more, but Sonic would just as easily destroy them, wasting valuable resources. Not to mention that all those machines out there would be salvaged by Freedom Fighters, and their parts and weapons would be used against him.  
  
He sat down in his throne-like chair and sank into thought. It was time to come up with something new and brilliant. Some idea that was not Snively's, but his own diabolical and flawless plan.  
  
Robotnik smiled.  
  
***  
  
Sonic lay in the sun on the edge of one of the clearings where there had one been trees. Tails, Sally and Bunnie were busy with shovels, digging holes in the loamy soil. Fifteen saplings lay in a heap nearby, their roots wrapped in damp cloths. They had been carefully extracted from the neighboring forest, and were awaiting new homes in the cleared acreage.  
  
"One nice thing about this," said Sally, standing up and resting for a moment. "With those big trees gone, there will be plenty of sunlight for these little ones."  
  
"Every cloud has a silver lining, eh?" said Sonic, wishing he could get up and help.  
  
"You said it," said Sally, smiling.  
  
Tails straightened up. "Who's that over there?"  
  
Everyone looked and saw a pink hedgehog trot out of the trees and look around. "Sonic!" she squealed, and dashed to him.  
  
The pink hedgehog was followed by a brown one, and several other nondescript Mobians who appeared to be short both several meals and a bath. The brown hedgehog walked up to Sally and bowed.  
  
"Hello. My name is Kaysar, and we're from the village of Petra."  
  
"Pleased to meet you, Kaysar," said Sally, wishing she had time to wash her hands and brush her hair. She shook his hand anyway. "What brings you here?"  
  
"Our village is in an unsuitable location," said the hedgehog. "It's a hard life there, and we're looking for a home suited more to our tastes, here in the Great Forest." He looked her in the eye. "And we want to aid you in the battle against Dr. Robotnik."  
  
Sally experienced a mix of emotions--shock, joy, and worry about where to put them all. "Of course!" she said. "I'll show you to the village." She dropped her shovel and hurried off, greeting the other newcomers and fairly glowing. More people. At last, Knothole had enough people to run real missions!  
  
She passed Sonic on her way into the woods, and saw him straining to get away from the pink hedgehog's attentions with a look of disgust on his face. Sally smiled. Every cloud had a silver lining, indeed.  
  
The End 


End file.
